School taxes are hammering people in these N.J. towns. See how yours stacks up

Some homeowners in New Jersey pay more than 1 out of every 10 dollars they earn annually in their paychecks to their local school system, an NJ Advance Media Analysis finds, but the burden of education spending is not evenly distributed across the state — also also not what you might expect.

Schools are expensive in New Jersey. That's not news. They have long been the most expensive chunk of the state's lofty property tax bills, and the state, generally, has one of the best school systems in the country.

But not all school bills are created equal.

Outliers may not be who you think

Click or tap on the chart above to explore the data.

While the average homeowner pays about 5 percent of their paycheck toward public schools, residents in some towns typically pay more than twice that, according to an analysis of income and state tax data.

Many middle class towns fare worst, the analysis found.

While some towns, like Upper Saddle River or Mendham, pay an average of more than $12,000 in property taxes toward local schools, incomes are far higher than the rest of the state, lowering the burden on residents.

And some of the poorest districts are heavily subsidized by state aid, decreasing the burden there, too.

That leaves people in places such as Lodi stuck in the middle, with nearly 12 percent of their pay earmarked for education.

How much of your paycheck goes to schools?

Use the chart above to see how your district stacks up. Type your town into the search field, or sort the tables by clicking on the column headers. **Editor's note: A previous version of this table showed incorrect income data for Monmouth County. It has been corrected.

A town's school tax burden is locally dependent, spanning many income classes and towns of varying sizes, the data shows. Penns Grove has a median household income of just $34,439, about half of the state median. But the typical resident shells out more than 9.5% of their income to local schools.

That's slightly more than Tenafly, where the typical household income is more than 4 times higher at $144,353. The school tax burden there is 9.13%.

The list below shows which municipalities have the highest burdens in the state, by percent of median household income.